Pierce banged angrily on the door. “Open the door, goddamn it! Hurry!”
The sound of a loud commotion at the end of the long hallway seemed to beat out the last bit of calmness he contained. Something was approaching from behind. It was moving fast. His time had run out. He was trapped, and his fate rested in the hands of those he hadn’t seen — the strangers on the other side of the door.
Hanna’s action was quick. She grabbed the door lever and started to move it upward. It didn’t rise as easy as the first time. There was pressure against the door, which made it harder to unlock. From the other side, the man’s weight pressed against the surface, shoving it forward with immense force. As the lever cleared the lip of the frame, the door swung forward fast. The man’s body plummeted forward into the room like a floodgate of bone and flesh. He crashed to the floor with an enormous thud, landing on his side. He cried out. Hanna wasted no time sealing the door again. The man quickly unholstered a Browning sidearm from the bottom of his tactical vest.
“Get the weapon!” Russell shouted out.
Dimitri dived to the floor and grabbed the man’s hand. Russell dashed over and grabbed the man, pinning him to the floor as Dimitri wrestled the handgun from his sweaty palm.
Pierce rolled to his back and looked up in a daze. He had lost his weapon. Strangers surrounded him, and their motivations were certainly unclear.
Hanna sighed with relief. The man was disarmed and was no longer a threat.
Pierce looked over the room and found Gail. She was the only one in a military service uniform.
She recognized him, but they’d never had a conversation. Things were like that on base. It was possible to work with the same person for years and never know a name or hold a conversation. Ambiguity was how a base like this survived. Gail knew who Pierce was as soon as he fell into the room. He worked for an exclusive group — a group that had very high clearance. A group that was cut off from everyone else. They were the bad boys of security operations on base. Although she outranked him, he was autonomous. Her authority would mean little to him.
Dimitri stepped toward the man and motioned him up with the gun. “Sit up.”
Pierce shook off his inner frustration and complied. He knew he better obey. The younger man didn’t seem to be a person he would want to confront. He slid across the floor and rested up against the wall.
Hanna grabbed the squeaky chair Russell had occupied for hours. She pushed it toward Pierce as an offering of solidarity.
Dimitri, however, was less consoling. He kept a watchful eye on the prisoner and made sure he didn’t forget who had the gun.
Pierce slowly climbed up and plopped into the seat. Everyone remained quiet. No one knew what to say.
“Why were you running?” Dimitri asked.
The man said nothing. He continued to fight off the pain, using his struggle as an excuse to avoid eye contact.
“Hey. He asked you a question,” Hanna demanded from across the room.
The man was a good soldier. Getting him to talk wouldn’t be easy.
“You were running from something,” said Russell as he gravitated toward the conversation.
Pierce continued to ignore the interrogation.
“Hey,” Dimitri shouted.
Pierce looked up. Dimitri was the only one who could get his attention. Maybe it was the gun. Pierce sat up and looked at the others. “There’s a patrol about fifteen minutes out.”
His response was intriguing to Gail. “What’s your SC, Pierce?” she asked.
The man was uncomfortable replying. He had already given up too much information. He carefully selected his words. “Level five. Under CC Howell. That’s all I can tell you.”
Pierce still had his walkie-talkie radio clipped to his vest. Hanna reached out for it. “Can you radio him?”
Pierce glanced up at the audacity of the question. It was amusing to him. Who the hell are you? He had never seen her before. He had a photographic memory. It was a job requirement. Her face registered nothing. She was certainly not someone he would take seriously. He looked back to Gail. She backed Hanna up with her expression. He chuckled. “Here.” He quickly removed the radio from his vest. “Have it. They’re blacked out,” he continued and tossed the radio to Hanna.
It was one of those “here, catch” moves; it was a dick move. Hanna almost dropped the radio, fumbling it in her hands. She contemplated for a second before forcing it into Gail’s hands.
Gail’s tired face said it all. If she accepted the radio, she would be forced to take a leadership role — something she had tried desperately to avoid that day. All eyes were on the lieutenant, though. She sighed with frustration and reluctantly placed the transmitter to her dry lips. “Ten-fourteen, base command. Lieutenant Gail Sullivan. Over.”
There was nothing but static. All the people in the room held their breaths and waited for a response.
Gale continued. “Base command, come in.”
Silence again. Pierce snickered. “They know where we are. They’ll get to us,” he said with a smug smile.
Gail looked down on the silent radio with a sense of defeat. Radio silence was unusual and indicated something unprecedented had happened.
“Where’s the rest of you? Your team?” asked Gail.
“You can request a briefing from my CO,” Pierce replied.
“Can you at least tell me the classification?” she asked, but she knew the answer.
Pierce felt it was pretty obvious. She should have known what classification it was when no one responded to her radio call. He looked back up and rolled his eyes. “Reno.”
His one word seemed to trail off and sent chills down Russell’s spine. He looked back to Gail and then over to Dimitri. Dimitri wasn’t surprised.
Neither was Gail. She took in a heavy breath and contemplated what it meant for their situation. Hanna flashed a look back to the others. She was the only one who seemed left out. “Classification for what?” she asked impatiently.
Russell looked to Gail for an interpretation. She was lost in deep thought. Russell tried his best. “It means the base has been evacuated.” He glared back at Pierce. “But why? Why were we brought here?”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re safe here,” replied Pierce.
“No, we’re not,” Gail replied sharply as she stepped toward the door.
Her legs were quick to go. She dropped to a knee. She reached out her hand for the side of the chair, but she missed. She fell to her side.
Hanna and Russell jolted at the fall. They swooped in quickly to respond.
“I’m fine,” Gail shouted, fighting off Hanna’s assistance.
Hanna continued to help anyway.
“I said I am fine.”
She meant it that time and offered Hanna a look of death. Hanna backed off. “Whatever,” she said and paced away in the opposite direction.
Pierce shook his head, trying to reaffirm his position. “They’ll come to get us.”
“Nobody is coming,” Dimitri responded abruptly.
Everyone rubbernecked toward him. He looked back at the air vent. “We’re in South Secondary,” he continued.
Pierce knew the truth. Dimitri was correct. He was smarter than he looked. Dangerous. He was someone worth keeping a distance from. Hanna and the others didn’t seem to know what to say. If South Secondary was nothing else, it was a shit-hole situation to be in.
“South Secondary?” Hanna asked.
“It’s a part of the base that doesn’t belong to us,” Russell replied.
Pierce looked away. Hanna angled back to the master sergeant for a response. No one wanted to speak.